Environment
The Explosive Growth of the World's Largest Coal Mine
Wyoming’s Powder River Basin has seen tremendous development in the last few decades.
If you ever pass by one of the roughly 600 coal-firing power plants in the U.S. and wonder, Where are they getting that stuff?—there’s a good chance some of it came from the ground in Wyoming, which provides 40 percent of the country’s total coal production.
In fact, two of the biggest coal mines in existence are found in the state’s Powder River Basin: Peabody Energy’s North Antelope Rochelle complex, the largest coal mine on the planet, and the Black Thunder Mine, the “first coal mine in the world to ship 1 billion tons,” according to its owner, Arch Coal.